This past Thursday night was one of the most enjoyable nights in recent memory.

The a cappella group that I’m a part of this summer, The Funktors, recently got its first gig: opening for Jon McLaughlin at a company barbeque on Monday.  This is very, very exciting.  We’ve been rehearsing about three times a week for four hours at a time for a few weeks now, and working pretty hard at preparing ourselves.  This Thursday, we were missing a few members because of scheduling conflicts, so our rehearsal was short and not terribly productive.  On a whim, we decided that it might be fun to go sing outside and get some fresh air.

We wound up wandering around downtown Seattle from around 10pm until 11pm and singing songs at various street corners for all of the homeless people and drunken clubbers who would listen.  It was a real joy when some random passerby would compliment us, or even go so far as to stop and dance along.  We even made $1 from a woman who gave us a tip, despite the fact that we had no tip jar/hat/guitar case.  On top of all of that, we sounded amazing.  Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was the acoustics of singing outside, but we were in tune, on time, and really just loving every note we sang.

Also, some guy spit at us.  This is patently absurd, mostly because we are probably the most harmless group of college-age, mostly Asian, happy-go-lucky singers you could ever encounter at 10pm in downtown Seattle.  Seriously, we couldn’t even hurt someone if we tried.  What sort of thought process goes like, “Hey look, a bunch of Asian kids singing ‘Brown Eyed Girl.’ I think it would a rational decision to spit at them.”?

Jerk.

Today marks a momentous occasion in the history of this little blog: the first post ever with embedded Flickr photos! You’ll have to try your best to contain your excitement; we wouldn’t want any ecstatic screaming at this hour of the night now, would we?

Browsing Facebook one lazy evening, I came across a Marketplace listing for a used Fender American Stratocaster for $450. I wasn’t actively looking for a new guitar, but this was potentially a tremendous deal, and if I were to buy another guitar, it would have been a Stratocaster anyways. My interest piqued, I e-mailed the poster and opened the appropriate lines of communication. After meeting him and playing the guitar in person, I wrote a check, and came away the proud owner of a beautiful guitar. Curiously enough, I can’t seem to quite pinpoint the exact model of the guitar, since the serial number is missing. I suspect that it has either worn away, or the neck was replaced at some point. Anyways, here are the specifications:

• White Fender Stratocaster
• 3 Rio Grande pickups
• Vintage tremolo, temporarily stopped for more sustain
• 21 frets
• One-piece maple soft-V contour neck

And the promised pictures:

If anyone needs me, I’ll be channeling Stevie Ray Vaughan and wailing away in my room (which, incidentally, I moved into about a week and a half ago).  I’d post pictures of it, but that would oversaturate this post with pixels, and they’d start dripping all over the place and everything would just get messy.

I recently purchased the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s latest album, Stadium Arcadium, and have spent the past few days listening to its two discs, named Jupiter and Mars, for reasons that I’ll speculate about in a bit. My initial impressions have been overwhelmingly positive; the tracks of Stadium Arcadium are now regularly circulating in my Giant Playlist of Music ™.

The first disc, Jupiter, by far the more restrained of the two, begins with the now instantly recognizable “Dani California,” which is merely “very good” until John Frusciante launches into an incendiary solo near the end of the track. Frusciante’s guitar work on this album is simply remarkable, and is one of the main reasons I like Stadium Arcadium so much. Most of the remainder of the Jupiter disc is composed of slow ballads, reminiscent of “Under the Bridge.” Frankly, I prefer Mars over Jupiter, but the ballads are all well done. When I first listened to Jupiter though, it left me wondering, “Where’s the funk?”

Luckily, Mars proved to be the answer. Here, we hear Flea returning to the hyperactive slap-pop style that characterized much of the Chili Peppers’ earlier work. It works wonderfully. The tracks here are catchy, memorable, and above all, funky. Every member of the band shines here, from Chad Smith’s solid drumming, to Anthony Kiedis’ supercharged vocals. Mars is a disc that makes you want to move, and while it might not inspire some to get up and dance, it will certainly leave a huge, silly grin on your face.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers haven’t released an album in four years, and suddenly they drop this massive two disc set on the world. While it may not explore many new musical territories, it shows the Chili Peppers maturing as a band, at times preferring the sublime over the psychedelic, but no matter what, still doing what they do best: having fun.